In many electronic devices, the backplane systems that are used for inter-chip communication transmit a clock along with the data. This clock is used at the end of the backplane trace to latch the output data in. Other backplane systems transmit a data bus along with a synchronous clock. These systems require a tight skew control between the clock and the data bus as well as among the individual members of the data bus. An automated measurements system is required in a production/test environment to measure this skew in order to ensure compliance to the relevant specifications.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a more effective and efficient means of skew measurement.